Strawberry Fields Forever
by blackeyedgurl
Summary: One shot set during Logan and Veronica's first attempt at dating. Logan's hurting, Veronica is a refuge. Memories, snark, emotions and some lovin.' (This summary sucks, read this if you are into young V & L adorableness)


**This is my first attempt at VM fic. The movie has me feeling nostalgic, and I had some demons to exorcise. Please be kind, your feedback is most definitely welcome! **

**The content of this story is definitely closer to MA, so if semi-graphic oral sex offends you, stop reading now.**

These characters belong to Rob Thomas, not me. No profit earned, no theft intended.

* * *

Veronica was roused from sleep when the additional body crawled into the twin water bed. The small waves encouraged her to move over to give him some room.

"I don't think this is what they mean when they say it's not the size of the boat, it's the motion of the ocean." Logan's sly voice whispered in her ear. She smiled.

Dating Logan Echolls was not what she expected. In her conversations with Lilly she got the impression that Logan was an insatiable man-beast, wild to the core, always looking for the next rush, the next big thing. Now she realized that Lilly's influence was far reaching, even for Logan. He was what she wanted him to be; now he was what Veronica needed. She wondered if Logan was ever just Logan, without outside influence of those around him.

Logan groaned. Not a sexy groan, a painful groan. Veronica twisted around to face him.

"Are you okay? That didn't sound good." She knew what his father was capable of, she had seen him take it out on a stranger, and she couldn't imagine what he was capable of with someone he loved. Rage like that could only be intensified by emotions.

"Just a Thursday night special. Some grilled steaks, family infighting, followed up by quality time with an Italian made crocodile skin belt with a titanium buckle. Lesson learned: it really isn't a steak without A1." He wouldn't look at her, and instead stared at the window he had recently crawled through.

This was becoming a habit. Aaron Echolls would lose his temper, beat his son, and then his son would crawl through the window of the ex-sheriff's home to seek shelter with his daughter. Veronica understood why he'd need to flee. The locks she helped him install in the guest house to keep Aaron out didn't matter when Aaron would rather smash a glass door to get to his son. Nothing could keep Aaron's blind rage in check, especially not his son.

Living in Neptune, when her dad was sheriff, she had learned that the dirtiest secret around these parts was domestic violence. It seemed that narcissism and ego mania went hand in hand with abuse, and wealth and appearances kept it under wraps. _Never leave marks in easily visible areas._ Might as well be the town motto.

She had seen his scars once. He never took off his shirt without facing her, but once he turned around to pick up a different one and she saw the history of his relationship with his father in marred flesh. Circular scars in varying shades of red and pink which were definitely from a cigarette, the larger ones from the cigars Aaron smoked on occasion after he quit smoking. Scars in arcs and hard angles, belt buckles probably. Then there were the lines, Veronica remembered watching Roots and The Color Purple in school for Black History Month, the lines on Logan's back reminded her of the scars she saw in those movies. Switches or whips, it didn't matter, they were still signs of some sick ownership.

"Did he break the skin?"

"I don't know."

"Can I see?"

She heard him sniffle. "I don't really want you to. It's bad enough that you know."

"Please, let me clean you up."

"And to think, I came over here to get dirty." He joked. Sarcasm for Logan Echolls, was not his second language, but his native tongue.

Veronica crawled over him and went to grab her first aid kit. When she came back Logan had taken his shirt off and was lying on his stomach on her bed. His back was a criss-cross of welts. Even by only the glow of the street lights creeping through her blinds, she could see the voids left by the holes in the belt. He had been hit, repeatedly and hard. Several of the wounds crept beneath the waist band of his pants. Apparently Aaron wasn't just into pain; he was also a fan of humiliation. In only a few areas the welts evolved into abrasions; small pools of plasma leaking up through them. This incident would not add to the myriad of scars already present on his body, but she was sure it had already been filed away in his scarred mind.

"This is going to sting a little." She said preparing to wipe down the oozing wounds with some peroxide.

He hissed as the first wound bubbled with the oxidizing reaction. Tears streamed down Veronica's face as his body tensed and all she could think about was general chemistry lessons about peroxide not being friends with anything, that it was too volatile, that it tended to give off heat when mixed with more stable solutions and eventually, it would just become water. Something so volatile, at the end of the day was something we couldn't live without. It seemed silly, but she related to peroxide, and she knew that Logan did too.

"I don't want your pity." Logan mumbled when he felt her hot tears hitting his skin.

"I'm not crying about you," She said while wiping her nose with the back of her hand, "I'm crying about chemistry."

"Well it's good to know that you get emotional over the periodic table, personally, I'm only emotionally invested in Newton's Third Law."

She wiped away the water left behind once the bubbling was gone and gently rubbed some Neosporin onto the abrasions. She gently covered them with some large band-aids and patted him on the shoulder.

"Well Jim, I may not be a doctor, but I think this patient is gonna pull though." She joked out loud.

"So we're playing doctor now? I always imagined you'd be in a sexy nurse costume and I'd need to give you a hot injection…"

"Stop." She interrupted him. "I always imagined you in that little nurse's cap, and now you're ruining the fantasy."

"So she admits she fantasizes about me? I'll take it." He rolled onto his back wincing slightly. "Come here." He reached out his arms.

She put the kit on the floor and launched the cotton balls at the trash can. When her shadow shifted she saw his split lip.

"Your lip…"

He flipped into his girly voice, "I'm just so clumsy, those doors come out of nowhere!"

"I hate that this happens to you. If we just tell my dad…"

"I think the Echolls family has had enough tabloid time, and really, who'd believe me?"

Veronica understood that better than he knew. She hadn't worn white cotton underpants since that party, since she was ruined. Lamb didn't believe her, no one would. She knew Keith would believe Logan, but also knew that didn't mean much these days.

She snuggled into his bare chest.

"My dad is out on business tonight."

"Oh when will the cheating spouses of Neptune learn that Keith Mars will stop at nothing to get his money shot?"

She looked up at his face; tears were still welling in his eyes, staring straight at the ceiling, pushing his anger down. She reached up to touch his face.

"You're beautiful." She said.

"Whoosh, uh oh, someone just made my panties drop!" He joked blinking the tears back, and smiling down at her.

"And I didn't even need to buy you dinner!"

"Sometimes I can't believe this is real. I keep expecting to wake up; Lilly sprawled out beside me, with you in Duncan's arms somewhere."

"I'm sorry to be a sad substitute," Veronica said, getting defensive, pulling her arms away from him.

"No, I don't mean it that way, I mean that I think this is the best dream I've ever had, and I'm scared I'll have to go back to that being my life."

"It's okay; I know I'll never be as exciting as Lilly."

He grabbed her face with his left hand, made her look at him, "I've had a crush on you since I started having crushes. I remember your hair smelling like strawberries in middle school. I once snuck down to the pharmacy in town to try to figure out what you washed your hair with cos I couldn't find it in the fancy salons my mom dragged us to. It was Suave's Strawberry Fields. I shoplifted a bottle and huffed it nightly. It smelled like you, it smelled like normal, it smelled like a life where I didn't have to drop my pants once a week for some discipline, a life where moms made dinner and dads came home from work to watch the ball game on TV while I sat on the floor doing homework. You weren't just some girl I thought about in the shower, I mean, I did think about you in the shower, but you were this symbol of a life I could never have. Then you started growing boobs, and you primarily became spank-bank material."

Veronica remembered adolescent Logan, skinny and small, braces and goofy smiles. He was always bragging about how he broke his arm skateboarding, got a black-eye from his surf board or broke his leg skiing in Aspen. Looking back on it, she doubted his life was that exciting, cover stories, acting, clearly ran in that family.

"I used it cos it smelled like this Strawberry Shortcake doll I had when I was little. My mom and dad fought a lot, and that smell reminded me of a time when they didn't. A time before my mom drank a bottle of chardonnay before I got off the bus, and another before my dad got home."

"No one's life is perfect. I knew your life couldn't possibly be a sitcom, but it was this hope that someday I could have you, someday I could make your life my life, someday I could let that life override my life. It wasn't exciting, and that was the point."

She understood why he crawled through that window over and over again. This house was a refuge, a shelter in the storm. She desperately wanted to tell him that she loved him. Those three little words were almost impossible to spit out for her.

"Ronnie, you feel like home to me."

She stared him in the eye and was overcome with a lust for him. He was home for her too. She wanted to be smothered in him, to be absorbed into him so maybe he could sense how she felt. Emotionally unavailable wasn't the truth, so emotional she couldn't spit out the words without fear of terrifying someone was closer to the truth.

Her mouth smashed into his and she crawled on top of him. She knew it had to hurt him but he never made a sound.

"I need you." She stuttered out between kisses, "I need you now."

She needed to feel his skin, the heat of his flesh, the touch alone might be enough to transmit her thoughts to him. Her shirt got stuck on her head; grace was not something she possessed. He helped her pull it off and then stared at her, straddling him, the bed slowly rocking from the eagerness of their movements. She drove away thoughts of being self-conscious as he ran his hand flat from her belly, between her breasts, to wrap it around her neck and pull her to him.

She started tugging on his belt, trying to loosen it. Duncan didn't wear belts, hell, she had never tried to get into his pants so it wasn't like it mattered.

"Are you sure?" Logan asked looking at her with concern. This was not the sex crazed beast Lilly had told her about, this was a guy who really seemed to care, he didn't want to hurt her, he didn't want to make her do anything she didn't want to.

"It's jamming into my flab, and your jeans are chafing my delicate lady skin."

"Flab? Seriously? Veronica if you wanted into my pants all you had to do was ask, lies do not become you." He said as he winked and quickly undid his belt and opened his pants, "Begone foul leg coverings! M'lady doth protest!"

Veronica laughed as she pulled the fabric off his legs and onto the floor.

"Everyone thinks I sleep in Lit, in reality I'm just absorbing the words of a long dead master." He proclaimed as he rolled her over.

She wrapped her legs around him and pulled him down to the heat radiating from between them. He'd had a hard-on since she kissed him and now there would be so little between them.

"Well these need to go," He said tugging at the waistband of her cotton sleep pants. "It's only fair, an eye for an eye, pants for pants. The Bible says so."

"Please tell me more about the Bible as we strip, it's such a turn on." She mocked him while lifting her hips to let him pull them off.

"Well, there are lepers and incest and a flood. And we can't forget about the fire and brimstone."

"Is this why they call it 'getting to know someone biblically?'"

"Yes, and I'm looking forward to introducing your burning bush to my pillar of salt…"

"I think you may have just crossed the line between sexy bible talk and something from Bible porn."

"Do they make Bible porn? And why do you know that?" He asked raising an eyebrow to her.

She just grabbed him and pulled him down on top of her. Her legs once again wrapping around him, laying hipbone to hipbone, his length rubbing against her most sensitive parts, parts she had never rightfully given to anyone. Her underthings were soaking wet, and she think she finally understood what Lilly's room and car always smelled like. It smelled like sex.

Instinctively she was grinding against him, kissing him, sucking on his bottom lip, biting the sinew of his neck, she felt like a woman possessed. He couldn't stop holding her tight, he'd reach down to grab at her breasts, but he didn't want to pull their bodies far enough apart to do so. She ran delicate fingers over old scars on his back, removing their hateful memories with sensations of pleasure.

Suddenly Logan got very still. Veronica tried to keep him in the moment with her.

"Baseball, puppies, roadkill, baseball, puppies, roadkill…" he started whispering in an almost mantra like state, eyes pinched shut, between deep breaths.

"What's wrong?" She asked.

"You're too good. If I don't take a break, well, things are going to get messy." He breathed through his nose, and clenched and unclenched his hands next to her body. Only then did he release the contact between them. Hoping the lack of touch, of heat, would cool him down. He kneeled between her legs, looking down at her, flushed and breathless. Tiny pink nipples at full attention, belly soft and girl-like, hair a tangled mess, eyes heavy with sex, because he knew that couldn't be love. He might have felt it, but he didn't expect her to, after all he was a broken, abused mess with a bad attitude and daddy issues. He wasn't worthy of her love, or that of anyone else.

His breath slowed, and he reached out to touch her thigh with the lightest, feathery touch his fingers could muster. She raised her hips off the bed so invitingly that his resolve dissolved and he could feel his release spurting, soaking his boxers. She closed her eyes when he ran his hands from her knees to where she split in two and may have let out a little moan.

He moved his way up her body and kissed her, gently.

"Has anyone ever gone down on you?" He whispered in her ear. She shook her head slightly. Of course she hadn't, Duncan didn't like to get messy. Messy was where Logan lived. "I want you to relax, and if you want me to stop, just tell me," He slid his hand between her legs to cup her hot wet sex, he rubbed where her nub should be through the fabric with his thumb. She pushed against his hand, granting some unspoken approval. He moved his hands to her hips and slowly pushed the fabric down until it strangled at her knees. Leaning back he lifted her legs to pull them the rest of the way off and kissed the backs of her knees as he ran his hands back down their length to spread them before him.

He laid on top of her again, and she could feel that his time out had not succeeded, his shorts damp and cool against her. She could feel him starting to harden back up just from being near her; she didn't realize that the recovery time for a guy could be so quick. She didn't really have any experience in this area so it wasn't a big shock. She tried to spread her legs further to feel him between her innermost parts, but he started to slide down her body, kissing her neck, and her collar bones, the space between her breasts before taking each nipple into his mouth and sucking hard letting each one pop out of his mouth as he reached up to run them between his fingers. With his arms outstretched to cup her breasts and his head kissing her belly he looked like a worshiper off of some strange Egyptian tomb. He finally squirmed down, his hands on her hips, he looked up to her and locked eyes with her as he slowly exhaled through pursed lips over her heat and wetness. Her eyes rolled back in her head and she swore she could hear him smile with satisfaction.

Soon his hands and mouth were on her, she had never felt anything like it, warm and slippery and ridiculously good. His flattened tongue licked her at full length, and then undulated against her clit, and she found herself trying to ride his face. He stilled her hips and wrapped his lips around her clit and began to hum as he inserted a finger inside of her, she gasped and convulsed off the bed. She was so hot and tight that it took all of his strength not to come in his shorts again. Instead he filled her with two fingers, rhythmically pumping in and out of her while licking and humming against her most sensitive area. He felt it coming before she did. She was uttering a litany of words, begging a god he was sure she didn't believe in, and calling his name over and over, he felt her begin to contract inside and he added one more finger and began to suck on her. The first contraction was so hard she almost pushed his fingers out of her, she screamed. He continued to pump in and out of her as each wave crashed over her, watching her come, for what he assumed was the first time in her life, was even better than he imagined it to be. He never wanted this moment to end.

Soon enough she calmed, and her hands reached down for him, a contented smile passing over her face. He pulled himself on top of her once again, grabbing the edge of the bed to slide over her sensitive body, feeling the electricity roil off of her. He kissed her, he wanted her to taste how he tasted her, he wanted her to know why he would spend his lifetime down there if she'd let him.

He rolled onto his side and lazily drew circles on her stomach. When he looked at her there were tears in her eyes.

"Oh god, I'm sorry, Veronica, I didn't hear…"

"I didn't want you to stop, I think I just accidentally overfilled the emotion tank. This is not crying, this is purging." He ran a thumb over her tears to gather them. She ran his hand down her cheek and sucked his thumb into her mouth.

"That's cheating." He said, she only smiled with her eyes, devilishness gleaming in them where tears just were.

She let his thumb pop out of her mouth. "Eye for an eye Logan, I appear to be naked, you do not."

"Everyone knows I don't play by the rules, I'm a bad boy if you didn't get the email."

"I'd hit you if I didn't feel like my limbs were made of jelly." She punctuated her point by failing to lift her arm off the bed. "See? You've destroyed me."

"I prefer to think I ravished you; destroyed sounds like I burned down your village."

"Well, you are going to have to sacrifice a goat in the town square if you expect to take my virginity." It came out of her mouth before she remembered she had no virginity to give away. He could see her wheels turning just behind those eyes. "And you'll need to be naked."

"Veronica, no, this isn't…"

"What you imagined taking my virginity would be? I know I always imagined a room full of scented candles, rose petals scattered around the floor, ritual sacrifice fresh on my mind, maybe some Barry Manilow crooning away in the background."

"Is Barry Manilow the ritual sacrifice?"

"Stop trying to change the subject."

"I have a Neil Diamond CD in the truck…"

Veronica crossed her arms over her body and rolled away from him.

She could feel the waves through the mattress of him moving; when he spooned up behind her she could feel his complete nakedness against her. His erection was trying to find a place to rest that was inoffensive and non suggestive.

"Are you satisfied Miss Mars? You have me naked in your bed; do with me what you will. I admit I am powerless." He whispered in her ear, apologetic tone dripping off every word.

"You aren't powerless." She said with a tremble in her voice. "Never say you are powerless."

"But I am when I'm with you."

She pulled the blanket over both of them, tangling her legs with his, pushing herself against him.

"I like being your little spoon." She mumbled, Logan could hear sleep creeping into her words.

"I'll always be your big spoon, baby. I've always wanted to be and I always will be." He said planting a kiss on the nape of her neck, and another behind her ear. He pulled her even closer to him, his length cradling her warm, damp slit as he cradled her body. "Go to sleep sweetheart, I'll protect you from the boogey man."

"No boogey man here, only dragons."

She couldn't even fall asleep without getting the last word in. He buried his nose in her hair and inhaled deeply. Strawberries, she still smelled like strawberries.


End file.
